Chasing Heaven
by xElementFivex
Summary: Getting Mello back is all that matters to Matt, no matter what the cost. Besides, a few punches never hurt anyone right? Wrong.


**Oh, what's this? A new story? I should stop doing that now.**

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"_Matt. Matt!," A slender hand shook the redhead's prone form, attempting to rouse him from sleep. "Something's happened. L is dead, Matt. He didn't pick me or Near. I'm leaving. I can solve this on my own, without that brat's help."_

"_Thas great, Mello," Matt muttered, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow. "Tell me more 'bout it in the morning, kay?"_

"_Jesus, you've always been impossible to wake up. I'm leaving, okay? I'm going to America, I think. I can get more done there than I can here, with Near constantly looking over my shoulder. I just wanted to say 'bye' first."_

"_S'okay," said Matt, words muffled by the pillowcase. "See you in tha mornin'."_

_Mello removed his hand from Matt's side, drawing it back to himself, but pausing and hovering oh-so-slightly for a minute. There was no one there to see it except Matt, and he was asleep, so Mello allowed himself for a moment- just a moment- to pour all his doubts and fears and goddamn emotions into that hand. He watched as it trembled and shook and for that moment he felt like breaking down, crawling back into his own bed across the room and pulling the covers up tight over his face and pretending that this wasn't happening. That L wasn't dead. That he wasn't leaving the only place he had ever known at only fourteen years old to seek out a cold killer in a world he had never truly seen._

_Then the moment passed and he quickly clamped his other hand down around his wavering wrist and stilled it, stuffing every thought and feeling that didn't pertain to catching Kira deep down inside himself, where maybe, in a couple of years if Kira was dead and he wsan't, he could retrieve them._

_He didn't look at Matt's sleeping frame again, just turned on his heel and left. He didn't take anything with it, save for his wallet. He didn't need anything. He would assume another identity in America, a brand new Mello to replace the old, weaker version. And he would do it alone._

Regret.

Matt knew the taste of regret. It was metallic and tangy, like blood, and it clung to the roof of his mouth and the sides of his throat no matter how many times he swallowed. He had lived with it, slept with it, eaten and drank it, so that now it was fused with him at every possible level. He liked to imagine that now, at the age of eighteen, that the regret had eaten into his insides, twisting and merging them into a dark, perversion that could never be untangled.

Regret followed him, and he welcomed it. It was nice to have company. Something to ride beside him in his car, and stay up with him the long nights that he kept surveillance, and to taunt him with silent cries of _'Why couldn't you just wake up?' _and _'It's your fault! You could have stopped him!"._

Yes. One could say that regret was Matt's best friend. Filling in for a missing boy with hair as bright as the morning sun and a temper as dark and terrible as a midnight storm. And now, today, after four years of his constant companion, Matt was finally able to see a future without it. If only he could get inside that building.

Matt sighed and swapped the binoculars for his goggles, snapping the orange, plastic frames back over tired, bloodshot eyes. He turned away from the window and settled back against the stained plaster of the wall, wincing as a bit of exposed rebar scratched at his back. He kicked a bit of old, ceramic tile that had come loose from the floor, and the sound as it skittered away echoed all up and down the four floors of the abandoned apartment building.

Matt's left hand wandered up absent-mindedly to scatch at his red hair, getting tangled in the unwashed locks, as his other rifled through his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Finding his quarry, he pulled one out and lit up, drawing a deep lungful of smoke. He grimaced at the taste: Marlboros. He hated that America didn't have his favorite brand of cigarettes. In fact, he hated everything about this fucking country. But it did have the one and only thing he wanted. And that thing was currently in the building across the street.

Mello. He was so close that Matt could practically smell that clean, soapy smell that always enveloped the room when Mello turned his head too fast and the air whipped through his hair. So close that Matt could almost hear his voice, they way it cracked in anger or got breathy and rushed in excitement. He was so close, so why the fuck couldn't Matt just get up off his ass and walk over there?

Was he uncertain? No, he _knew_ he would find Mello there, delegating to his mafia cronies, dealing out death and pain as easily as if he was ordering a pizza. He had spent a year traveling through California, following trail after trail of useless dead ends until he had traced the blonde to here, this shitty neighborhood with the quiet rustlings and deadly rumors of a terrifying new boss. It was definitely Mello. No one else could have risen through the ranks so fast, yet with so little talk that it remained just that: talk and rumor shared between criminals when they thought no one was looking.

Did he think he'd get hurt? No, he wasn't scared of physical pain much. There was nothing that could really be done to him that bothered him. He had already lost the one thing that meant the most and the pain from that was more than a thousand broken bones could give.

The truth was, he was scared. Scared of the fact that he had come all this way, and it could, and probably would, amount to nothing. Scared that the feelings of emotionally unstable fourteen year old boy would have been completely wiped out when he became a psycho-for-hire, hellbent on revenge. Scared that Mello would take one look at him, and those blue eyes would reflect nothing but indifference.

Yeah, Matt was scared out of his mind. But, no matter.

Matt took a final, deep drag on his cigarette, burning it down to the filter and tossed it away, where it landed and smoldered among the broken bits of tile and decaying wood. He watched as the ember on the end wavered a bit and tried to catch, before it was snuffed out by the moisture from the rainstorm the previous day. Trying to ignore the uncomfortable parallel he saw there, he put his glove-covered palms down against the ground and shoved off. He was scared, yeah, but his plan was simple, and didn't require much bravery. He wasn't going to try and sneak past Mello's mafia thugs. No, he was going to get caught.

He and thought and rethought his plan dozens of times as he sat surveying Mello's hideout, watching the comings and goings of the men who flitted in and out of that place like birds fleeing before a big storm. They were always watchful, but they never saw him. They may have been good, but Matt had not been third in line for no reason. After a week of carefully detailing each and every move the people inside made, and still no sign of Mello, Matt knew what he had to do. Sneaking in would get him nowhere. At worst, it could get him killed. But just walking in, now that was the ticket. He tried not to think too hard about what they would do to him, but almost certainly they would take him to the boss. The situation was just too weird not to. And then… Matt hadn't let himself think about what would happen once he actually got to Mello.

And now there was nothing left, but to do it. Matt removed his small, silver handgun from his jacket pocket and set it down on the floor. He wouldn't be taking it with him. All that he kept on him was a small, black pocketknife, a gift from Mello on his thirteenth birthday. He shoved the blade as deep into his jeans pockets as it would go, and then, before he could change his mind, ducked quickly out the window and onto the fire escape. He was ready. He was chasing his own heaven, and he would go to hell and back to get it.

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**Review? If only to tell me how much I suck. XD Be prepared dear readers, for the next chapter. There will be smut o' plenty.**


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